Posted on 07/10/2012 10:32:59 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The union problem ends at the Potomac River at this end.
I signed aboard this ship to practice medicine, not to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space by this gadget!Even if a matter teleportation device is ever invented, I think I would want to travel in some old-fashioned way, rather like Bones.
— Dr. McCoy, from Space Seed
The actual situation is that there IS BASICALLY NO SERVICE anywhere but the East coast.
To take a train anywhere else will cost a huge amount and take longer than any other form of transportation except maybe a bicycle.
It is a total rip unless one is an East coast commuter.
Best bet for Amtrak is to shut it down while selling off the East Coast service pak to a private operator.
The dozen guys watching are enough "jobs-creation" justification for Democrats.
They've done that recently.
Notice, though, those jobs have no staying power. Everybody else ends up going bankrupt and gets put on the street!
That may be so. I believe you. It just boggles the mind when, as somewhere in the article mentions that estimated costs are ~$260 million per mile.
And as you say, automation in track maintenance, repair and re-laying is highly automated and few people are needed, at least out on the tracks to do it. I’ve sat and watched them for years - amazing, replacing ties, rails and grinding and leveling in one pass of a couple-three ‘machine trains’. But, somebody has to ‘load the magazine’ so to speak.
I’d say a good portion of the $260 million will be going somewhere it doesn’t need to be.
No doubt Ol’Jer Brown and his cronies have in mind men lifting pickaxes and others turning jack, but that’s not what’s going to happen ~ there will, of course, be lawyers ~ thousands of lawyers!
And the Federal government, should not have, in that same era, used a massive new government program to establish a condition - the Interstate highway system - that made for government sponsored competition against the private railroads, in both freight hauling and commuter trains, and was a boon to bus companies and those who made buses, as well as the truck-hauling industry and those who made trucks. Private toll roads could have done the job, and maybe the pace at which they could have done that, the routes available, and the tolls might have left more room for the railroad industry to adjust, improve and still be efficient and economical for passengers. We’ll never know; the option was not taken.
At the same time, in the major freight transportation and largest commuter market of New York City, two sets of huge new tunnels for roadways (not rail) were built and operated by a new government agency, one crossing the Hudson river between Manhattan and New Jersey, and the other crossing the East River between Manhattan and Queens - actions which were part of the changes that helped put the New York metropolitan commuter train lines into bankruptcy; with ICC and Union shackles still in place, and motor vehicles given brand new government provided options.
It must be hit home all the time - whenever the government intervenes in the market place, it gives with one hand and takes away with the other.
Now, a half century later, the state governments of New York and New Jersey are looking at large new train tunnels - at taxpayer expense - to help the commuter train lines they are still operating (at multi-million$ deficits), because they want to help kill more of the automobile traffic that their earlier tunnel projects helped produce.
The cycle repeats.
The real question is whether it is worth it to travel from NYC to PHI in 30 FEWER minutes. The existing trip isn’t horrible (although there’s not too much demand for it). Do we really want to allot a quarter TRILLION dollars to making the trip a half hour shorter for a few thousand folk? Millions of folks with a 90 minute commute times each way in their cars might be feeling otherwise.
I’m sure Maryland Governor Martin O’Moron would NEVER support anything this stupid. /s
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
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